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Restoring Law and Order?

Ayat Al-Gormezi, a 20 year old poet and student at the Faculty of Teachers, has been subjected to harassment, defamation, intimidation and threats of rape and murder. On the 12th of June 2011 a military court in Bahrain sentenced her to one year in prison for reading out a poem criticizing the country’s King.

Ayat was unexpectedly released from prison on 13 July 2011 on the condition that she would not travel outside Bahrain or speak to the media about her detention.

Ayat's poem

The poem that led to her imprisonment:

First of all I wish to send a short message to those who think they are able to dance over our pains and base them uponsectarian strife and above all to the one-eyed channel (Bahrain TV):

We do not wish to live in a palace nor do we yearn for leadership,

We are a nation that slays humiliation and assassinates misery,

We are a nation that demolishes injustice peacefully from its foundations,

We are a nation that doesn’t want this nation to remain at a constant setback,

(I shall start reciting my poem and will prey upon an individual who is one of the main causes of injustice in this country: Yes, it is their king Hamad!)

At the dining table of this nation’s calamities sits Satan and Hamad,

And from there this conversation takes place:

Satan:

O Hamad! Fear Allah when you deal with them!

For my heart is breaking over what you are doing to them,

Despite being Satan you have made me side with them!

Do so now before I turn against you and prostrate to their Prophet!

And return to my Lord I shall for I am bewildered by their struggle.

Hamad:

O partner you have taught me of how discredit them,

With humiliation, insults and calamities I have learnt from you to bestow upon them,

And now O Satan you have come to intercede for them?!

It seems their awareness and ability to disobey has shaken your identity!

Satan:

Yes O Hamad your nation has shocked me!

And yet you do not pay any attention to what they say!

You do not pay any attention to their chants, calls and the sound of their horns.

“Down with Hamad!”

Do you not see the masses of people gathered together?

I will not be surprised if the Messiah is amongst them!

Who listens to their complains, their struggle,

Their each and every footstep,

Be careful O Hamad! For I warn you.

With all your wealth you will never be able to bribe your nation.

Hamad:

Hold on O dear Satan,

I have not yet finished filling my stomach with their blood,

I have not yet naturalised the rest of my family, friends and their women,

I have not yet instructed all my fellow thugs,

To become birth-giving machines where mother and father work together while my other thugs collide with them also!

I have not yet finished forcing every candle of dreams (youth) on this motherland,

To each traffic light he stands,

Begging each passerby,

“Please buy these water bottles from me”

While nobody responds to his call,

I have not yet finished torturing every turbaned man on this land,

Every youth and child,

Nor have I yet finished stamping upon theflowers of youth inside my prisons,

I have not yet finished opening a million routes to humiliation,

Nor have I yet finished putting this entire nation into a state of lamentation,

Not yet O Satan has the number of youths with martyrdom upon their chests heightened!

With no job nor occupation held

Forget them! They deserve it!

I have not yet finished paying each south-Asian on this precious land,

To hold our flag up (at pro-government rallies) shouting

*in a poor Arabic accent*: Long lives the father of Salman!

I have not yet finished sucking blood from flat to flat with the burden of bills,

Meanwhile the thugs have lands and houses,

But not to worry those affected don’t exceed 120 in number,

I doubt anyone will be able to hear their cries.

(*Sarcasm* Hamad hasn’t yet received the new figures from Bahrain TV. He still thinks we at Pearl square are only 120 and doesn’t know we’ve actually increased to 320!)

Satan:

Who are you kidding buddy?

Are you saying all these people are just 120 and no one hears their cries?!

Look here my over-confident apprentice O father of Salman,

O he whose level of treachery has exceeded that of his teacher,

And made his heart soften over their cries,

Your revolutionary unified nation has worn me out fully!

Sunnis and Shias are brothers there are no conflicts for Allah has preserved them,

Sunnis and Shias are brothers and we shall never sell this nation!

They have sacrificed seven martyrs from amongst them,

Seven for the sake of this land,

Hasn’t your stone-heart softened yet over their bloody uprising?!

Can I as a partner make a suggestion?

Gather up that trash of a useless regime which has brought no satisfaction,

Because your nation O dear beloved one,

They are way out of your league!!

(Translated by Mohamed Al-mahroos)

"By locking up a female poet merely for expressing her views in public, Bahrain’s authorities are demonstrating how free speech and assembly are brutally denied to ordinary Bahrainis,”

Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa